1. This intense eagerness to get Sarah Palin for whatever it is she might have done on line unfolded concurrently with all the attention that had to be paid to Anthony Weiner for his on-line antics. What we can't see is the agony the poor journalists must have endured as Weiner's wienerisms hurt the Democratic Party just when they stood ready to damage the Republican Party with Sarah's misdeeds. And then — oh, how awful! — they got nothing from Sarah. Nothing but hard work and — urrrgghhh! — good government and — damn! — family values.

2. The fact that there was nothing was actually news, and the journalists should have protected their integrity — appearance of integrity — by reporting the nothing with clarity. In the run up to the receipt of the boxes of xeroxes, air time was devoted to speculating about what might be in those emails. Most notable — it's in the middle of the "Daily Show" montage — was the suspicion that the governor's husband was secretly running the show, pulling the strings. (You know, the shameful sexism.) But there was absolutely nothing that looked at all like that. Maybe there's another montage that could be made of these reporters spelling out clearly what was disproved by the emails. But I think what they did was dribble out statements like "no smoking gun yet" — seemingly expecting that we'd gradually lose interest and move on to something else.

3. Let's credit Sarah Palin for phenomenal, hilarious restraint. She knew there was nothing that would hurt her in there. She resisted the disclosure for legitimate privacy reasons, but she had to also know that the revelation of nothingness would backfire on her disgustingly salivating opponents. Her designation of them as "lamestream media" is vividly vindicated. And, because there was nothing, the invasion of her privacy looks especially unkind. Finally, she knew that the most interesting thing in the big box was the full text of the letter from God. She'd edited it down for publication in her memoir "Going Rogue." It might have seemed maudlin to reprint the whole thing at that point. But now we get the entire missive, and we're stunned and weeping. Oh, Sarah! The idiot is a genius!

Problem I have with fairly juvenile catcalls like "Rethuglicans", "Lamestream media", "DemonCrats", "Chimpy", "Our Muslim President" - is it doesn't brand the target.It brands the person saying it as a certain sort of idealogue.

I just recalled that scandal of all scandals when the visiting Kenyan Pastor spoke at a Church where he asked for group prayer for Sarah's protection from witchcraft. Well as General Patton said about the Chaplain who wrote his "weather prayer" to help get the 101 AB at Bastogne's relieved before it was too late, that Pastor must have been well connected in Heaven. Since then, the war focused on, over and upon Sarah Palin's career has been more than the usual politics.

I want to see all of Weiner's e-mails. Also, Barney Frank's e-mail, Chris Dodd's e-mail, Nancy Pelosi's e-mail, etc...We all want to see the tape of the 'unseen but nonetheless famous video tape in which Obama toasted Rashid Khalidi at a testimonial dinner likely also addressed by Bill Ayers.'

I'd like our media to do their job. Alas, the only job they think they have is to act as cover-up and protectors for their candidates – and to endlessly harass one female politician.

Jim Vandehei of Politico, on Morning Joe today:"If you talk to any single reporter at any media organization that we're aware of, I don't think that anyone thinks she can be president or should be president."

What the heck? Bias is one thing - you can't escape that - but since when is it a reporter's job to decide on which candidates we may choose between and actively work to winnow the field to meet with their approval?

What the heck? Bias is one thing - you can't escape that - but since when is it a reporter's job to decide on which candidates we may choose between and actively work to winnow the field to meet with their approval?

Hagar wrote: ...but since when is it a reporter's job to decide on which candidates we may choose between and actively work to winnow the field to meet with their approval?

There's a simple, almost physical mechanism at play here. A chemist will appreciate an analogy to thermodynamics versus kinetics:

Let's suppose that the electorate is in a state X and desires to move to a point X'. Having failed to block or impede the pathway from X to X', certain reporters and influenzal bloggers are now trying to change and define the goal itself, X'. They hope that by making the goal X' seem so unattainable or impossibly high-cost in energy, the body electorate will tire and seek a pathway of lower resistance.

The MSM thought there'd be bad stuff in the emails because they judge others based on their knowledge of themselves. (Journolist, etc.) The thought of normal, wholesome people is pure fantasy to them.

Good point. I'd forgotten about some of the vile stuff in the Journolist archives.

And I'm still waiting for the Journolist dump that Althouse promised to write about when it became available. Why isn't it available yet? Reading that would surely be more useful than reading the emails of a governor who hasn't been governor for quite awhile. Meanwhile all those Journolisters are still out there "shaping" the news.

Please let me do the work of absent friends and speed things along. Palin:• Stoopit;• A Quitter• A Religious Fanatic;• A Moocher;• A threat to Public Safety on the Hi-ways;• A Joooo-Lover (for Cedarford); and• Unelectable.It’s important to quickly and efficiently clear out the undergrowth that needs to cleared or said, so we can move onto the REAL issues, “Who is Trig’s REAL mother?”

An excellent point. If she'd been whining right up to the moment the emails were released it would have detracted from the impact of her public relations victory. Even if the outcome was the same, and nothing was found, it would have set the wrong tone. But by standing sublimely above it all, and getting on with her life, she avoided wallowing in the muck that the lamestreamers have splattered all over themselves.

===================No, sometimes the answer is a lot simpler.When Jesse!! was running, moderate-conservatives hated and feared the man. Not because he was electable, but from where they stood, Jesse was a hatable person and had beliefs and policies they feared.

Progressive Jews hated and feared Dubya, Cheney, and Pat Buchanan.

Gays hate and fear many traditional values politicians.

But you don't need to be electable or even feared to be hated. Sometimes just being a Sharron Angle or Anthony Weiner is enough in itself.

I think a lot of Sarah Palin's "whining" comes from her unfortunate tendency to answer when someone - even a "reporter" looking for a "let's you and him fight!" piece of bait - asks her a question.I do not mean to advise Ms. Sarah to learn to give non-answers like the rest of the crowd, but a straight and simple "No comment" or something like that might often be best, so that they don't get to quote her answer and complain about how "whining" and "thin-skinned" she is.

"When Jesse!! was running, moderate-conservatives hated and feared the man."

No, neither of these things are true. We thought Jesse was a joke and wondered why anyone took him seriously. We would have feared him if it looked like he could get the actual Dem nomination since he would then have a finite chance of winning.

It is irrational for the press to fear Palin if she has no chances. They may say it, but they don't really believe it. This is why they fear her.

It's funny the media doesn't understand that, by not reporting on their own silly motivations, they have even less credibility. I saw what they were doing - and was appalled - so for them to attempt to walk away, without a word on how craven they were, just adds to their shame.

It has always been clear that Palin has lead about as clean a life as you will see from a politician. The public and private person are the same. This is what so intimidates those who do not have similar such moorings in principle.

The chillbilly rube accomplished as much or more than they did and didn't have to sell her soul to do it.

Jim Vandehei of Politico, on Morning Joe today:"If you talk to any single reporter at any media organization that we're aware of, I don't think that anyone thinks she can be president or should be president."

Heh. "A group of largely under-qualified hack writers thinks..."

I mean really. Name, say, three mainstream media outfits with excellent reporters overall. I'll give you WSJ but can you name any others?

At this point, I just look to the individual reporters themselves. For example, Jake Tapper, the ABC Whitehouse correspondent, is very good. ABC News, overall, is crap. There are some fair-minded reporters out there, but the news organizations themselves are pretty bad because most of their reporters and editors are pretty bad.

Sarah Palin has discovered an interesting method of allowing journalists to shoot themselves in the foot. Her "party like it's 1773" was an example. In their haste to make her look like an idiot, then end up making themselves look like idiots by jumping the gun. Same with the recent Paul Revere comment. She had just come out of the Old North church and probably received a better education on Revere's ride than most Americans ever get.

She is good at setting them up and letting them take the leap themselves.

Sense of decency? Or fairness? Or the duty to report the news? Integrity? Nothing like that in the MSM. But, they have their Ivy League University Journalism degrees mounted on the wall to gaze at, especially during these times, becoming ever more frequent, that they have obviously failed the public as the "4th branch".

Jim Vandehei of Politico, on Morning Joe today:"If you talk to any single reporter at any media organization that we're aware of, I don't think that anyone thinks she can be president or should be president.

"I can't believe Nixon won. I don't know anybody who voted for him."

Our information brokers have no self-awareness. And no shame. Fire them all.

Oh Sarah indeed. I saw a report of a letter written to the Guardian in Manchester. It was authored by a female professor at Columbia University who wrote that Ms. Palin's e-mails appeared rational. So rational in fact that "you could almost forget that she's an idiot".

None are so blind as those who will not see. This same professor apparently claimed that Ms. Palin got three facts wrong--when in actuality Palin was right--and the beclowned, but no doubt highly degreed and pedigreed prof was wrong. Who's the idiot?

Can we officially say once and for all that these people have lost all credibility and any integrity on being truthful at all? They lie and we as citizens have to endure this because their facilitators in government, the judiciary, the media outlets, and in academia are in on the scam too.

Is Sarah Palin behind the public disclosure of her e-mails? She is, after all, a successful politician. Could this be a tweak the media trick?

After reading them and finding them incredibly sane and reasonable, I'm beginning to wonder if Palin may not have arranged for their release. These e-mails show that she is anything but the know-nothing ditz portrayed by Tina Fey on SNL.

Her Nemesis, the MSM, is getting slammed by all sides for their Palin obsession and prying into her personal life while the country's going up in flames. And the e-mails themselves make her look good.

Combine this with her bus tour and the release of her video, it looks like she is front and center in the media spotlight. And everything that is "exposed" about her shows her to be the sanest person in public life (thank you Anthony Weiner). She could not pay enough for this publicity.